Performance and …

In titling our chapter 'Performance and...' our intention is not to privilege performance studies over theatre studies or drama but rather to call to attention the longstanding proposition that performance (studies) 'resists or rejects definition' (Schechner, Richard, 1998, 'What Is 'Performance Studies' Anyway?' in: P. Phelan and J. Lane (eds.), The Ends of Performance, NYU Press, p. 360) and as such highlight the potential it holds for interdisciplinary scholarship and the way in which the idea of performance has been conceived fluidly and expansively, both key concerns of all the volumes reviewed here. We are, we hope, at a point in the development of performance and theatre studies where there is an understanding, acceptance and exploration of the mutually constructive and beneficial interweaving of these two 'traditions' of scholarship within the broader field of drama. In the books we look at, both 'theatre' and 'performance' are brought to bear on the matters at hand almost interchangeably, with established text-based dramas taking their place alongside works in the performance art tradition to further arguments pertaining to a variety of disciplines. Such plurality of approach is a defining feature of the works we have chosen to discuss and binds them to a common purpose: the exploration of drama/theatre/performance in, with and between other disciplines and discourses in the pursuit of illuminating the world around us in more meaningful ways

Theatre and performance design: a reader in scenography

This volume, the first of its kind in this field, brings together over fifty key texts and newly commissioned works that provide a critical and contextual framework for the analysis of theatre and performance design. The collection and analysis of material for the volume was undertaken with Andrew Nisbet, but Jane Collins was responsible for all of the additional writing, including the essays that frame each section. The volume was nominated for the TaPRA (Theatre and Performance Research Association) David Bradby Award for Research in International Theatre and Performance in 2011. Collins was invited to talk about the book at the opening of the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space in June 2011 and as guest speaker at the 15th Bharat Rang Mahotsav, International Theatre Festival in Delhi in January 2013. It has been reviewed in international journals including New Theatre Quarterly and Australasian Drama Studies. Theatre and Performance Design: A Reader in Scenography is an essential resource for those interested in the visual composition of performance and related scenographic practices. Theatre and performance studies, cultural theory, fine art, philosophy and the social sciences are brought together in one volume to examine the principle forces that inform understanding of theatre and performance design. The volume is organised thematically in five sections: Looking, the experience of seeing; Space and place; The designer: the scenographic; Bodies in space; and, Making meaning. This major collection of key writings provides a much needed critical and contextual framework for the analysis of theatre and performance design. By locating this study within the broader field of scenography - the term increasingly used to describe a more integrated reading of performance - this unique anthology recognises the role played by all the elements of production in the creation of meaning. Edited and with an introduction by Jane Collins and Andrew Nesbit, contributors include Josef Svoboda, Richard Foreman, Roland Barthes, Oscar Schlemmer, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Richard Schechner, Jonathan Crary, Elizabeth Wilson, Henri Lefebvre, Adolph Appia, and Herbert Blau

Hospitality and the Ethics of Improvisation in the Work of Ingemar Lindh

Ingemar Lindh's work on the principles of collective improvisation has crucial implications for the history of twentieth-century laboratory theatre. His early work with Étienne Decroux and Jerzy Grotowski contributed to the development of a unique practice that resists directorial montage, fixed scores, and choreography; and the ethical dimension that accompanies Lindh's research on collective improvisation is illuminating for a more holistic understanding of the technical and aesthetic considerations in theatre. In this article, Frank Camilleri discusses some of the key aspects of this dimension, notably the dynamics of hospitality and encounter that inform Lindh's approach and the question of responsibility in the actor's work. Frank Camilleri is Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Studies at the University of Kent. From 2004 to 2008 he was Academic Coordinator of Theatre Studies at the University of Malta. He is also Artistic Director of Icarus Performance Project – an ongoing research laboratory that investigates the intermediary space between training and performance processes. Camilleri's work with Lindh in the mid-1990s was instrumental for the development of this research practice

A manifesto to decentre theatre and performance studies

With the climate of Brexit, xenophobia and white supremacy on the rise, health and safety of Black and Global Majority people under threat during the spread of Covid in the UK and elsewhere, a discussion of colonialism, migration, borders, and equality – in the classrooms and outside – is more pertinent than ever. Situating the ongoing Decolonise the University movement as part of broader social justice struggles to address the political, social, and economic crises we find ourselves in today, I propose a few ways of decentering Theatre and Performance Studies in the form of a manifesto. What follows is a meditation on precarity, critical pedagogy, Black study, feminist survival, ethical research praxis, and the violence of caste, colourism, and racialisations

Paralympic cultures: disability as paradigm

This is an article about the Paralympic Games of summer 2012 and the experience of watching them. It rehearses the use of disability as political and cultural identity in relation to theatre and performance studies. Disability identity is not an identity based on similitude, but is a complex and nuanced relationship between singularity of embodied social experience and glimmers of common ground. Taking the works of Rod Michalko and Petra Kuppers as a representative foundation of disability studies, the article offers disability as an epistemological standpoint, a way of thinking, and not an object of thought. The argument works through close readings of three examples to introduce the theatre and performance studies reader to the notion of disability as a paradigm for the consideration of ideas of difference, similitude and identity. The process of reading the Paralympics from the perspective of a disabled person, bike riding sports fan and disability performance scholar gestures to the scope and potential of disability performance studies. The article accumulates three examples of one disabled person navigating a complex set of positions, all of which are iterations of disability. Whilst this critical approach might imply solipsism, the article also considers disability as community

Performance studies, personal experience and knowledge: affirming personal experience as a resource in the study and creation of performance

M.A. University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities (Dramatic Art), 2012This research report entitled Performance Studies, Personal Experience and Knowledge: Affirming Personal Experience as a Resource in the Study and Creation of Performance explores the idea that theatre performance has within it the capacity to transform the theatre performer and consequently, the audience member and a greater society. This written component is derived from the observation of-as well as the participation in- two theatre-based case studies namely, Self, Play, Imagination and Story- a tertiary level performance studies course and Happy. Period. As in, FULL STOP!- an interactive theatre performance. Consequently, this report is practice-based research. The research analyses the use of personal experiences as resource material for theatre making within a South African context and provides a framework for the exploration of suitable methods for working through theatre and education to address personal transformation. This research offers a learning paradigm that affirms the use of personal story in creating theatre work and shows an example of how personal experience can play a role in addressing social issues through the interaction of theatre performers with each other and with audiences. This research finds, in its conclusion, that theatre that enhances the expression, ownership, and reflection of personal narrative can play a significant role in transformation

Special issue on staging Beckett and contemporary theatre and performance cultures

This special issue of Contemporary Theatre Review devoted to Staging Beckett aims to explore some of Beckett’s living legacies for the discipline of theatre and performance. This includes his impact on actors, designers or directors, on theatre cultures at national and local levels, and on theatre and cultural programming, to the generation of new approaches to theatre and interdisciplinary or intermedial performance and aesthetics, and on our interactions with the performance archive.The Staging Beckett project set out to explore these legacies on actors, directors and approaches to theatre and interdisciplinary or intermedial performance and aesthetics, on theatre cultures at national and local levels, on theatre and cultural programming, and on our interactions with the performance archive. This issue, though inevitably covering only a small selection of case studies mainly from British and Irish contexts, includes articles that cover several of these areas of investigation and suggests that Beckett’s work remains a vibrant presence and inspiration for scholars, practitioners and audiences of contemporary theatre and performance

Theatre and Performance Studies in English: An Introduction

Theatre and Performance Studies in English: An Introduction

A manifesto to decentre theatre and performance studies

With the climate of Brexit, xenophobia and white supremacy on the rise, health and safety of Black and Global Majority people under threat during the spread of Covid in the UK and elsewhere, a discussion of colonialism, migration, borders, and equality–in the classrooms and outside–is more pertinent than ever. Situating the ongoing Decolonise the University movement as part of broader social justice struggles to address the political, social, and economic crises we find ourselves in today, I propose a few ways of decentering Theatre and Performance Studies in the form of a manifesto. What follows is a meditation on precarity, critical pedagogy, Black study, feminist survival, ethical research praxis, and the violence of caste, colourism, and racialisations